William Hinds: House District 27

Thursday

1. What are the top issues you will address in your campaign and what are your plans for moving those issues forward?

School Safety

Introduce closed circuit TV (CCTV) on a few entrances and on key external locations. After 9 a.m., use only one entrance which is CCTV monitored. By the way, to avoid adding to operating costs, existing non-professional school personnel could assist, taking turns watching CCTV. Through proper scheduling two hours/week from 20 people could do the (CCTV monitoring) job and no extra expense, just a safer school and a culture of safety. Post exterior signs that the school is monitored by CCTV inside and out.
Place in conspicuous locations (fire alarm locations) lockdown alarms which can be pulled by anyone – not just the principal in the front office.
Insure that all classrooms can be locked from inside which is not the case in most schools.
At each district’s central office, assign one person as chief protective service officer who will check on each school’s readiness. This will not be an added person but a reorganized job. Perhaps our State Police can assist in this task of school readiness.
Share the best security practices in schools by convening representatives from all districts once per year. A good idea in one district can become a best practice across the state.

Education Reform

Drive the effort to give school districts more autotony from the state DOE and allow them to explore alternative education paths.
Expand transparency in school budgets to ensure every taxpayer can see where every dollar was spent and why.
Create a framework to give school districts the ability to develop pilot methods for new learning paths, this can be a wide range of techniques from instructor led distance learning to neighborhood storefronts allowing flexible education guidance, the goal here is try bold changes and not fear failure.
As recommend for school safety share the best education practices in schools by convening representatives from all districts once per year. Once again a good idea in one district can become a best practice across the state.

Opioid Epidemic

Work with the both health care and criminal justice professionals to move the drug problems out of the courts and into the hands of caregivers that voluntarily work with those affected with additions to rehabilitation, recovery and a return to being law abiding productive citizens.
Redirect some portion of funding spent on the failed drug war to drug education and rehabilitation efforts.

Reducing Violence across our Society

We must recognize most violent behavior in our society come from people on drugs, gang wars over turf, addicts committing violent acts to get a fix, and gangs who make their money on the black market trade of drugs.
By ending the war on drugs through decriminalization we could seriously remove these catalysts for violence and potentially saving thousands of lives.
Addressing the causes of violence will also open a dialog to reform unjust laws and return As the Libertarian party states “the best way to make people respect the law is to make law respectable”

2. What makes you uniquely qualified for the political office you seek?

I have seen the effects of bad bad government policy on our society for too long, too many people are dug in to failed approaches to problems that are making everyone ‘fixing’ problems rich while the problems themselves worsen. I believe I can be a driver for bold policy changes work for people instead of against them while bringing more transparency to how our state government spends our public treasure.

3. What community groups are you involved with and in what capacity?

The groups I support are Little League baseball which I coached for a few years and the American Red Cross which I have worked with to establish blood drives in office buildings making it easier for employees in corporate centers to donate blood.